


To Decide Against (Your Convictions)

by relevant_elephant



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 11:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relevant_elephant/pseuds/relevant_elephant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki gets flogged, but not in the fun way, the Avengers think maybe a spanking is a little too lenient then they don't, Thor has a breakdown and Frigga is secretly a bad ass. More serious than it sounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Decide Against (Your Convictions)

The Avengers gather at the pre-determined site with grim looks entrenched on their faces. Even Tony is subdued, with nothing but a passing, “Flogging?!! That’s all he gets is a flogging? How does that even equalize?”

He’s sipping a margarita through a bright neon green straw when everything goes white. The rest of the Avengers hear Tony’s panicked gasp of, “Shit! Did my Arc reactor fail? Am I dying?! IS MY LIFE GOING TO FLASH BEFORE MY VERY –“

They land a little jerkily on a purple-blue coral platform and, “EYES?!”

The Asgardians sent to greet them turn to stare when Tony’s momentum forces him to finish. He clears his throat, straightens his leather jacket and waves, says, “Howdy, Eric the Red, Eric the Blonde, Eric the Asian and Eric the Chick. Nice to meet ya.”

Natasha subtly rolls her eyes and by subtly, Tony totally means like not all, but he heard her okay? The welcoming committee just stares at him in puzzlement but Tony’s used to that. Totally.

The woman turns her eyes back to the group as a whole, solemnly states, “As the heroes who prevented Loki from overtaking Midgard, you have all been chosen as the representatives of your people to witness the punishment dealt for such a crime. May it bring you comfort and peace.” She nods once, her dark pony tail bobbing as she turns on her heel with perfect military precision and strides off, beckoning them to follow. Tony guesses Rogers was having an armygasm right about now.

_He’s probably composing his letter home as I monologue to myself. ‘Dear Father-Fury, It was the greatest day, blah blah blah, and they showed me all their military marching! Why can’t we get the rest to fall in line like that? Do you think we could engage in a Planet Exchange program?'_

His smirk slides slowly across his face as he follows along with the rest, barely listening as the woman introduces herself and her companions over her shoulder: “I am Sif and my companions are Volstagg, Fandral and Hogun. We are particular friends of Thor’s.”

Tony’s not sure whether she’s trying to play schoolyard games with them by claiming Thor first or if she genuinely thinks it matters. He watches her hips sway gently for all that she’s obviously trying so hard not to be feminine. If she wasn’t so far ahead of him and he too much inebriated, he’d catch her up and tell her there’s nothing wrong with being a little bit country **and** a little bit rock’n’roll, just look at Natasha. She carries deadly femininity like no one’s fucking business.

“Aren’t you dating Pepper?” Rogers’ voice intrudes on Tony’s pleasant buzz and he swivels his neck in the captain’s direction.

“As long as I don’t take them off the shelves, Pepper allows me my browsing rights.” Steve blanches, his eyes crinkling in distaste and Tony grins. The boy is so wholesome – it’s practically unfair for Tony to even open his mouth around the boy. He finishes with, “It’s not like she doesn’t look too. We’re dating, not blind or dead. Besides, with this Sif’s inability to accept that yes, she _was_ in fact graced with breasts and a pussy, I think I’d fare better propositioning Thor.”

Steve lets out an, “Ugh, you’re such a douche, Tony.”

A smile like the sun emerges on Tony’s face and he slaps Steve on the back. “Been picking up some personality from somewhere, Rogers? I’m shocked!”

There was a slight, tiny, little minuscule twitch at the side of Steve’s mouth before the younger (or was it older, did sitting on ice for 70 years count as living, Tony didn’t really think so, so he’s going with younger) man turned and sidled up to Bruce’s side. Tony leans forward to catch Bruce’s sour words to Steve: “This isn’t right, flogging. I know he tried to take over our world, that he’s killed, but we don’t flog _our_ criminals.”

“No, of course we don’t. We just lock them up, feed them free meals, give them access to free cable and libraries and doctorate degrees (paid for by the state, by the way), so obviously _we’re_ the ones doing everything right,” Tony snarked.

Bruce turns to Tony incredulously. “I thought you were joking about the flogging not being enough.” His voice is still mild, but it’s layered with disappointment. Tony shrugs, just as Clint chimes in casually with, “Guantanamo.”

Tony affects deep thought and drawls, “True.” Bruce grimaces. Again. Steve just looks confused. Again.

Bruce speeds up to Sif and the three Aesir men and asks, “Are public beatings a regular occurrence on Asgard?”

Sif turns to Bruce, eyes hard and mouth firm. Doubtful that she missed their carried conversation. Apparently she took offense to Bruce’s gentle soul. And possibly his phrasing.

“It is not regularly occurring, no, but that is only because it is rare for us to have such criminals to punish.”

“Oh, I was wondering when we were going to get into the whole, ‘my planet can beat up your planet’ debate,” Tony snarks, then sips loudly from his margarita. He’s not surprised when everyone ignores him. After all, this is a big day - Rock of Ages is getting a spanking.

As they wander into the no doubt wondrous place that is the seat of Asgard nobility, Tony hears Bruce mumble under his breath, “Do _none_ of you mind that this is torture? Isn’t this what we’ve tried to stop happening in the Middle East?”

Steve looks pained but he answers sotto voce, “I think it’s actually pretty mild of a punishment myself. He’s a mass murderer and attempted evil overlord with potential for even more mass murder, Bruce. A flogging? Little light to my mind.”

Bruce twitches and his veins do that bulging, rippling thing that heralds the near arrival of an OCD sufferer's worst nightmare. He calms somewhat easier now and catches hold of his anger. The Four Erics eye Bruce strangely and Tony wonders, for the first time, what Thor told his bosom buddies about the novel little humans.

…

It’s not just a spanking. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not. Tony hates this guy, he hates him with everything he has in him (he’s not going to say ‘fiber of his being’ or ‘with the fiery passion of a thousand suns’ because he’s unique and doesn’t want to be a cliché), but he so very much hates him that he can’t see straight sometimes when just thinking about what he did to Tony’s Agent Coulson. But this… this is just wrong on so many levels, it’s fucking ridiculous is what it is and he can’t help but mutter, only it turns out to be slightly louder than a mutter though he’s not sure anyone can hear him above the din of heckling and laughing and general reveling in Loki’s pain and humiliation, “This is just… fucking barbaric. And these motherfuckers think they’re better than us? More _superior?!”_

Bruce nods once, tightly, before excusing himself and Tony follows suit, hand settling on Bruce’s back and a constant mumble of, “Breath, you bastard. Breath. It’s like Lamaze, _he-he-hoo, he-he-hoo._ ” Bruce bobs his head, follows the breathing technique.

In between, he finds time to wheeze, “He’s not going to survive it, Tony. Even Asgardian bodies have limits and he’s not going to survive 10,000 lashes, _shitfuckdamn_ did you see the metal motherfucking _barbs_ on the end of those leather strips?”

Tony only nods and holds his stomach, visions of Loki’s flayed open skin flashing before his eyes, of flecks of Loki’s blood and muscle flinging into the crowd (some of the gore even _landed on him!_ ) from their precarious cling on the whip. He’s not entirely sure his vodka isn’t going to repeat on him.

…

Thor’s hand grips tight to Mjolner, his knuckles showing white. His jaws are clenched shut over the cries he can’t contain and his eyes are blurred with the tears he can’t, won’t stop. His face is wet, his beard is soaked and he just… if it wasn’t his brother, he would leave. Then again, if it wasn’t his brother, he wouldn’t be crying. He wouldn’t want to rage against the machine, as the Man of Iron once put it. He wouldn’t want to snap his father’s neck, grab Loki and just… run. Just the two of them with Thor never letting any harm or despair or – he cast his eyes about at the disgusting display his people were making, howling like nothing better than Bilgsnipes in heat – humiliation to ever touch him again.

He can feel his mother’s tears, piercing as knives into his biceps where she rests her head, her small body wracking with her every sob. His free arm is about her shoulders, holding her in closely to himself, and it’s the only thing stopping him from going berserk on his people. People who have proclaimed themselves gods, better than all the Nine Realms, and Midgardians in particular. He’s not sure about that, not any more.

He flinches, every time the crack of the whip flies through the air, the violent slap as it hits nerves and bone, the flesh and muscle having been eaten through already. They’re not even halfway done. He hears Sif beside him, and approving snort with every lash, and for the first time in his life, he wants to harm her. He never knew of her disparagment, her distrust of Loki until after he fell from the Bifrost. She’d told him she never trusted him, always thought Loki to be jealous and petty. He never thought she had it in her to be vindictive.

The whip descends to lash his brother’s broken body again and Thor wants to avert his eyes. He will not, he can’t see through the tears pouring from his eyes like they are succor for Loki’s abandoned soul anyway, but he will not look away. He will have his brother know the pain Thor feels for this debasement, for this death sentence. He steels himself even as the whip descends in what seems to be slow motion. His arm curls tighter around his mother and he hears the creaking of her bones, but she does not complain. She merely burrows closer into his side, her thin arms gripping Thor’s waist.

The lash hits, Thor flinches and… Loki finally screams – the only noise he’s made since stepping foot back onto Asgardian soil. Thor sobs, loud and uncontained, he drops his arm from his mother, drops Mjolner without a care, and rushes forward just as the next lashing is to fall. He dives forward, arms encircling his brother’s around the pole he’s tied to, massive body covering his brother’s lither one entirely as the whip falls, it’s momentum such that the guard chosen for the whipping cannot stop its descent.

He braces his body for the blow, only letting out a small hiss at the pain. Then there’s silence and all movement, all disgusting _merriment_ (like this is a fair, like these people haven’t grown up knowing Loki, doting on him, like he was naught but a mere _thing_ ) ceases.

His father speaks. “Thor.” For the first time in his long life, Thor declines to acknowledge him. His arms tighten around Loki, who lets out a small moan of agony.

“I apologize, brother,” Thor breathes, sets a gentle kiss on the flesh of his untouched neck.

“Thor.”

“You had best answer Odin, Thor. He is getting testy,” Loki rasps. His brother turns his head best he can and they lock eyes. Thor releases another sob, muffled in the same spot he’d kissed his beloved sibling. Loki’s face is soaked in tears and snot and pain. So much pain and not just physical. He is debased, as is part of the reasoning for this brutal punishment.

Thor kisses Loki’s neck again, eyes staring into the magnificent face of his brother (for even in torment is his brother ever glorious) and says, “I care naught, Loki. I’ll not have this vile display of barbarism go on any longer.” His voice wavers, his eyes flood once more with fresh tears. His body bows even tighter over Loki’s displayed form. He thinks Loki will say something scathing, something about not being brothers or hating him or being a fool. He thinks any number of things and though they will hurt, though they will flay his heart just as the whip flays Loki’s pale body, they will not dissuade him from his path.

Loki’s lips tremble, just the tiniest bit before Loki contains himself. But Thor sees.

“THOR!”

Thor swallows, straightens, turns. He faces the All-Father as a man, the man he has become thanks in part to his father’s banishing of him, but mostly thanks to the humans who had taken him in. He stands, head held high and convictions held even higher. He surveys the people, his people, the people he will one day rule and he feels nothing but contempt. He easily hides this, for they cannot but help their cruel ways. He was once them after all. He eyes The Warriors Three and Sif, his friends of old, those who have always known of Thor’s weakness for Loki, those who should not take delight in Loki’s punishment if only for the pain it would cause Thor. He cannot look upon them long without wanting to rage into them. He looks away, to his Midgardian friends and notes the absence of Dr Banner and the Man of Iron, notes too, the disgust the remaining three cannot wipe from their eyes, their mouths, their entire bodies. He turns to the steps of the palace, to his mother and to his father. His mother has never looked weak, not in his entire knowledge of her has she ever been weak and yet there she stands, pale as the death that settles upon many a warrior, shivering. She will be blown away by the slightest breeze. His father is nothing but stern, iron. Perhaps Loki is right and their father had never truly loved Loki. Thor does not know and he will not dwell. He is a man now and forever and it is time he acts like one.

“Father, by the laws of Bor, your own father, I invoke the Right of Byrdefordeling*.” He pauses as gasps resound throughout the crowd, as his mother breaks down into more sobs. He does not care. His body can handle much more of a beating than Loki’s can, than any Asgardian's can, always has been able to.

…

The remaining Avengers look around in fearful shock, one of them, no one is really sure who, hissing, “What is byrdefordeling?”

One of Thor’s old friends, they’re still not sure who, answers in a frightened, stunned whisper, “It literally translates into your tongue as ‘burden sharing’. Thor is demanding his right as brother to the accused to take the lashings in his place.”

“The All-Father will decline though, right?!”

“The All-Father cannot decline. The law is such that when invoked, nobody but the one who demanded such a right can rescind it.”

…

Thor ignores the whisperings, the gasps of either outrage or fear for their crown prince, stares the All-Father in the eye. He hears Loki’s breathing, even more rapid than before. He can only imagine his brother’s fury, at what he must see as Thor’s weak sentiment. He cares naught. He loves Loki and no one, not even Loki himself, will ever derail those emotions.

The All-Father nods, slowly, and intones, “So be it, but Loki is to remain in his position.”

Naked, bound, bloody and nearly broken. Thor’s jaw tightens. So be it. He is to remain in his position, but the All-Father did not decree that he was to remain bare. Thor unlatches his cloak from his armor, swings it quickly to cover his brother’s battered body, tucking in the sides to cover his essentials.

“What in Hel are you doing, you big oaf?”

Thor moves back, not deigning to answer Loki as he unlatches the holds on the front of his armor, the protection falling piece by piece to the golden marble of this once magnificent courtyard. Thor will forever loathe it. He looks his mother in the eyes, nods gently with a smile. She trembles back, her arms circling her waist as tears flush down her cheeks, but she nods in answer. She knows Thor’s might, his body nearly unbreakable to hold the kind of strength he does. He will not come near death, at least not close enough to look it in the eye. It is not to say he will not be harmed, for he will be. Severely. But this is Loki and he has always protected him – until he didn’t. It is this that Thor must make amends for, dismissing Loki’s claims that he was taunted behind Thor’s back, by Thor’s own friends at times, not protecting him like Loki had been used to, had relied on and then came to resent when it flared up at inopportune times – when he’d finally become used to being forgotten.

The last of his armor fell, leaving his chest and back bare for all to see. He turns, notices the return of Dr Banner and Tony, confusion and then, once the Lady Natasha addressed them, horror awash on their faces. He sees Sif making her way toward him, followed by The Warriors Three, but he shakes his head, sharply. They will not dissuade him. They will learn, once and for all – everyone will learn – that the most important person in his life is Loki. And they will keep their own counsel about it, for he will not be kind to those who speak against such love.

As he walks to the pole, Loki’s eyes stare him down. There is a realization there, a hope long since abandoned rekindling in his eyes. As Thor gets closer, Loki starts to shake, his body shivering and his head, denying this. His throat, his voice, falls raspingly, “No, Thor. You will not. I will deny you. I-I deny you!”

Thor wraps his body around Loki, hands locking around the pole, body molding into Loki’s. It hurts, Thor does not doubt this, but and despite Loki’s rejection of what Thor is about to endure of his own making, Loki presses back, pushes into Thor as he did when they were children and Loki believed the only one in all of Asgard capable of protecting him from the night was Thor.

Thor puts another kiss upon his brother’s neck, nuzzles his nose into the bloodied, gnarled hair and murmurs, “You have not that right, my beloved. It belongs only to me and I will not relinquish it.”

Loki shakes his head harder, his breath comes in panicked gasps and he turns his head to catch Thor’s eyes. They are brimming with tears. “You cannot, Thor you cannot, it is _my_ punishment for _my_ deeds, you cannot do this to me, you cannot make me finally believe you truly do still care for me, _you cannot do this to me_!” It goes unsaid that the reason for this means that Loki’s descent into insanity was for no apparent reason. Thor thinks he should not find this sentiment amusing, but yet he cannot stop a small, watery chuckle.

Loki glares and Thor meets him head on. “I can and I will.”

Their interlude is cut off by the fall of the first lashing. It snaps Thor’s back, the metal claws biting into his skin and Thor jerks, but he does not make a sound. Frigga cries out and Thor only wishes she had left the spectacle. Another lash and Thor’s eyes do not leave Loki’s, but more importantly, Loki’s do not leave Thor’s. He feels thin, trembling fingers grip his own, healthier ones and Thor grips back. They will do this together as they have so many things. Another lash and Thor thinks, _Three more closer to 5,000, and then 10,000._

The fourth lash has Thor grunting, lowly, no one audience save for one, and Loki leans in, kisses Thor’s cheek. A cold nose skims the same cheek, to his ear, and whispers, “We will never leave each other’s sides. We may not have been born brothers by blood, but from now into forever, we will be bound by blood.”   

Another lash and another and Thor will not stop staring into his Loki’s eyes. Each lash looses a grunt and Thor cannot help the thought that flits across his mind. Sex and violence are rarely separated, both viciously intense passions, and Thor can’t help but to take possession of Loki’s lips for a brief kiss. Another lash and he pulls away, noting the surprise in Loki’s eyes. He smiles because for once in a very long time, Loki's received a nice gift. Thor thinks he hears inhales of shock, perhaps outrage or disgust but he cannot care. Loki is the most important person to him and it must be known. Not even any future lovers, if there are to be any, will burn as bright in his heart.

…

Natasha watches the rest of the proceedings. She can’t but help to. She’s not fond of Loki, but the number of lashings in combination with the whip repulses even her. She’s done a lot, _a lot_ , of terrible things in her life, but even she thinks this was excessive. She knows the point was to lash Loki to death, but even she, with all her darkness, has never sentenced someone to such a public, slow and painful death. Such things do not sit well with her.  

And perhaps she has underestimated the importance of Thor’s love for Loki. She can see the rest of the Avengers, even the rest of Asgard, have. She couldn’t at first fathom just why Thor could continue to love his brother, but she’s come to realize that perhaps no human will ever be able to understand the connection forged between two brothers over a millennium. It’s too great a number for her race to even contemplate, let alone understand. Perhaps, were she in Thor’s stead, she would do the same. She cannot say for sure because she can’t really imagine living that long, side by side with one person.  

She may not understand but she respects Thor, likes him. She flinches at each lashing.

…

“’Tis not so bad, brother. It merely stings,” Thor rasps. Sweat has started pouring down his head, into his eyes and he is grateful for such a distraction; both from the whip and from the tears Loki cannot control. He never wanted to be the cause of Loki’s distress again, but he supposes, in the current circumstance, it cannot be helped.

“Not so bad?! NOT SO BAD?! You giant oaf, you utter fool, you incredible imbecile! I am determined to hate you forever, you-you…”

Thor allows Loki to wind down, does not interrupt. He wonders vaguely what other words Loki can use in place of those three that mean exactly the same thing. Perhaps he should invest in a Midgardian dictionary. He will need to with an eternity of his brother screeching at him like a fishwife.   

He is caught off guard by Loki’s lips slamming onto his, uncomfortably hard and trembling ever so slightly. He kisses back anyway.

…

Tony watches as Thor takes his brother’s punishment and it’s hard not to see, not to understand why Thor cannot sit by and let it go on. It’s hard not to see that every lash that had bitten into Loki’s skin had also eroded a piece of Thor’s soul. It’s hard not to see a big brother completely besotted by his little brother and okay that part’s a little weird but he figures there’s got to be reason behind all of earth’s ancient tales of gods and goddesses and plus, it’s not like humanity didn’t marry into family a lot (mostly the royals though, he’s sure, and Thor and Loki are royal so maybe it’s a royal genetic defect?). In any case, it’s hard not to see a person in Loki, a person who maybe just a little bit got driven crazy by a father who apparently doesn’t care, by a society that apparently thrives on public humiliation, by the thought that maybe his brother might not love him as much as he is loved. Bruce and Steve seem on board with the whole Understanding Plan, he can see it on their faces. They each look at him and there’s knowledge in their eyes and he nods.

And maybe they will never love or even like Loki, but they like and respect Thor. They’ll be there when Thor (and even, begrudgingly, Loki) need them. Shit, Tony didn't drink enough for this. They flinch when the next lash falls.

…

The whipping continues on into the evening, the brilliant beauty of the sun setting missed by all. The cheering of the crowd had stopped with the first lashing to their crown prince’s body and none could take joy from this flogging anymore, so it seems. Thor feels his love for Asgard die just a little bit more. His muscles tremble slightly and his body sags harder onto Loki’s. He struggles to straighten, apologies on his lips.

“Do not, Thor… brother,” Loki pauses, seemingly relishing the word in his mouth, said now with nothing resembling hate but love, “rest your weary body upon my back. I am not delicate for all that my body cannot last under 9,800 lashes. I will hold you up. I will always and forever hold you up, my beloved.”

Thor allows his body to sag, his face falling onto the healed round of his brother’s shoulder. He cannot tell now, the difference between his tears of pain and his tears of joy. Loki’s fingers tighten upon his own on the pole as the next lashings fall. Thor almost doesn’t feel the hurt.

…

Clint is revolted. He is raging mad and he will never come to this godforsaken planet again. This is total shit. And he’ll be there to pick up Thor’s –and yes, even Loki’s –pieces when this shitty day is over. _Shit!_

He flinches when the next lashings fall.

…

Thor can barely stay awake now. He’s lost so much blood it’s actually a miracle that he hasn’t slid off Loki’s back by now, to fall in an undignified heap at Loki’s feet. His breathing has slowed to match the beat of his slowing heart and he can hear whisperings. He’s almost certain he’s over estimated his stamina and that those are the calls of the dead, welcoming him into their embrace. He wonders if it is Hel or Valhalla that awaits him. He wonders if it is glory, to take the punishment of another onto his shoulders, or folly. He wonders, but he does not care. For naught but Loki would Thor take Hel over Valhalla. Such has it ever been, such has Loki ever owned all of Thor.

 _Such as it will always be_ is the last Thor thinks. He does not flinch as the next lashing falls.

…

Frigga watches as her sons sleep, deep and unfettered, in Thor’s bed. The healers wanted to separate them, Odin wanted to separate them, but she would not allow it, even as Loki fought, screamed and clawed any who got too near. The rift, whatever had caused her sons' distance, has gone. She knows it. She cannot like what has transpired, she cannot stop her boiling anger at her husband, but she can like the result that has come forth. That distance is gone. It pains her to see that Loki needed such savagery to know the depths of Thor’s devotion, but he has it now and his soul can be at peace.

She smiles through her tears as Loki takes role of protector, arms bounding tight about Thor’s body, even as he assumes the role of protected little brother, his head snugging up underneath Thor’s chin. She would kiss them, her sons, but Loki is as a warg-mother right now, ready to pounce at any who traverse too near Thor. The healers were an exception, Thor having been wounded worse than any had expected (and thus, Frigga decided some little nobody with a grudge against Loki had poisoned the spikes of the whip – she was vindicated in her claims to her husband when the whip ended up missing and could not be tested for such).

She soon closes the curtains around the bed, sheer enough for moonlight to shine through but opaque enough for privacy should Thor finally awake and they wish to engage in… activities. She gathers her reading and sits at the far table, by the balcony, and resolutely determines to forget the lashings. And her flinches.  

…

Loki stares into Thor’s sleeping face. It has been days and he has yet to awaken, yet Loki does not fret. He knows his brother (oh, _brother,_ how that word is succor to his lips, his heart, once more) is on the mend. Not even a poison such as had been dabbed onto the whip could take one of Thor’s strength down. He was, perhaps, in a Thorsleep, though Loki will have to have a talk about Thor not taking on such nonsense from the All-Father.

He regrets this. He regrets a lot of things though no one would ever know (but Thor knew, sometimes, he knew), but he regrets this the most. He will never forget the feel of Thor’s blood as it soaked through the cloak puddled around Loki’s feet. He will never forget the vision of Thor’s eyes, full of tears and pain, at each hit of the whip. He will never forget the man who dealt such damage to his brother, either, and once Thor has awakened, once Loki can sneak about before they leave (because he knows Thor and they will leave – for a time), the man who whipped his brother will be no more. Thor will not approve, he’s sure, but Thor need not know.

Fragile fingers, fingers made thin and bone by the tender care of the Chitauri and Thanos, fingers he hopes to make healthy again, brush an errant strand of golden hair from his brother’s face. He lingers, caressing the gorgeous cheekbone, a cheekbone he’s coveted but never thought to truly have to his own, fingers tracing the pattern. He runs them, then, into Thor’s hair. It’s longer now, longer than Thor’s ever allowed it to be and Loki, now that he’s not blinded by hatred and a soul-wrenching pain, can see how dashing it is. His own, not so much, and the moment he knows (knows _for certain_ ) that Thor is out of danger, he will have it cropped to his customary length.

He lays a gentle kiss to Thor’s soft lips, a fact that delights Loki to no end. He’d oft envisioned chapped, rough lips ravaging his own, a delightful thought to be sure, but this, the softness, somehow pleases him more. There is a banging at the door and Loki flinches, grabs ahold of Thor with all his might and _clings._

Fear races through his thoughts. They will take him away now that Thor has healed. They will take him and lock up his magic as well as him. He will be thrown into a hole deep into Asgard’s core where Thor will never be able to find him.

The banging continues and Loki’s thoughts become more irrational as he clings harder to Thor’s unresponsive body. No, now that they’ve seen Loki’s affection for Thor, now that they know ‘tis not dead as much as Loki tried to make it be, they will take and bind Thor. They will abuse Thor’s body, causing unrelenting pain on Thor to pain Loki. That is the most unbearable and they must know it.

Loki’s mind swirls, his eyes darting back and forth as he tries to search out a useful spell to use but he cannot breathe, it is hurting and Thor is not awake to protect him, to protect them both and he knows he must breath he must calm, but he can’t because he just got his brother back and now Thor is to be taken!

“Breath, Loki. Breath,” Thor’s gentle voice, weighted down by exhaustion, slips into Loki’s brain and, much like Thor can do with his mere presence, stops Loki’s thoughts in their tracks. He comes out of his daze, breath calming as he lowers his eyes to Thor, beautiful, wonderful Thor. And if anyone breaks into his brain vault and shows these thoughts to Thor, Loki will deny everything.

He smiles into those blue, blue eyes and comes down off the ledge, fingers unclenching from Thor’s bicep and neck, body uncoiling from its fight-or-flight ( _flight, definitely flight, Thor is still no match for Odin, not yet_ , whispers his brain) position and eases down into Thor’s arms. The banging has stopped.

Thor caresses Loki’s nose, from the middle of the eyes to the tip. He bops it and Loki is too relieved to glare. So he smiles instead.

Thor grins his large one in return, “I knew you liked being bopped.”

Loki scoffs and says, “I am merely drained. ‘Tis easier to smile than to glare.”

Thor’s grin turns into a lazy quirk of lips, but not dimmed, never dimmed. “Of course. How silly of me.”

“Indeed.”

Blunt fingers lodge at the base of Loki’s skull and Loki leans into it, relaxes that much more as Thor massages gently. He ‘hmmms’ in contentment, listens vaguely as Thor says, “Guards at the door.”

Loki tenses up, but Thor shushes him and continues the massage. Loki reasons that since they are still both there, together, it can’t have been bad. Then he wonders at such a panic that he could be unaware of Thor awakening and shooing guards away.

“Did they want to drag me away like the naughty prisoner I am?”

His joke falls flat as he feels Thor’s fingers tighten and then relax in his hair. It seems he’s hit on the right reason.

“I told them, and by extension father, that the decree was for 10,000 lashes and 10,000 lashes you have suffered, if even by proxy. Ten thousand lashes it will end at.” Thor pauses and looks into Loki’s eyes. Loki, for once in a very long time, looks back, leaves the mask off as he ever shall with Thor from now on.

“Ten thousand lashes it will end at, Loki, if you forsake such actions that have led to such devastating destruction. Stick to your mischievousness, your pranks, please, beloved.”

Loki fondles Thor’s arms, chest, runs his fingers through Thor’s hair again, then sighs. “I told you once, Thor, that I never wanted to be king. I meant it. But I had needed it Thor. If I couldn’t have love, I would take fearful worship. But I have love now, I have you back and I’m sorry it took you being nearly whipped to death to see your love for me has always been true. I promise. No more. But you can’t expect me to suddenly be besties with your human pets, Thor. I killed many of their own. And I find that species to be rather irritating, with few, if any, worthy of my time. But I promise I will not, as the humans say, go off the deep end again.”

Loki took Thor’s hands, clasped them together and smiled a genuine smile as Thor linked them even tighter, and whispered, “You have my word and my promise, my prince.”

Thor beamed, eyes sparkling with tears and Loki was seriously starting to worry about his brother’s manhood. He says so. Thor laughs.

“When we are better, Loki, I will show you how little you need worry about that aspect of myself. Repeatedly and with great vigor.”

Loki vehemently denies that he flushed and Thor will pay for spreading such rumors. Thor merely raises an arrogant brow. As the night passes, they speak. They speak of a great many things, grievances aired and apologies issued and accepted. They both know nothing is completely fixed and will indeed take at least as many years to do so as it took to erode, but they were better. Loki can live with a brother-lover and a mother full of love and be damned what the rest of Asgard thinks. Besides, it’s not like he wanted to rule over an anthill anyway. And diva or not, Loki was _not_ a queen (king-consort, Thor, _king-consort!_ ).

It will do, it will more than do, until everything doesn’t just _do_ any longer and is perfect, but that takes time. Lucky Thor and Loki have eons of it.

…

Loki is unsure whether he wants to understand his mother’s smile or not as he and Thor sit, holding hands, in her morning room, breakfast all but decimated. It isn’t to do with their new status as lovers, she’d gotten over that episode during the whipping.

Although, when Loki goes looking for the guard who’d damaged Thor, he finds he cannot find him. He does, however, find a gold chain belonging to mother in the vicinity where the guard was last seen. Thor is thoroughly confounded by Loki’s unstoppable cackling that night.             

**Author's Note:**

> * byrdefordeling – totally made this up. I hope the humor wasn’t inappropriate. I can’t seem to write anything without inserting a bit of it. I try, I really do. Hopefully it’s black enough at least to fit in to the theme. Third, I haven't written in this fandom before. Hope I did it justice.
> 
> author's note redux: This is in answer to a prompt on norsekink, located here. I hope I did it justice. I didn't make Thor traumatised but Loki was a bit and I hope the resolution feels real.


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